“A..kane..”
“NO!! NO, No no no no!!”
“You’ve got...to get outta here..”
“Stop it!!! Stop it please!!! Don’t--Don’t close your eyes!”
Slap!
Slap!
Slap!
A series of faint smacks along with frantic sobbing could be heard coming from a dark portion of the apartment ruin. There, a pair of siblings, two survivors whom had taken shelter were attempting to recover from a series of unseen assaults which had left them injured. One was a girl and one was a boy. The boy was barely breathing, incapable of getting back onto his feet and fading quickly. His sister lost herself in her hysterics, she was unable to face a reality where her brother was no longer with her. He’d been there since the beginning and with their parent’s untimely passing he was the only person she had left. They truly only had each other to rely on. He was so cold, was she whispering now? He could barely hear her. Was he…
dieing? Someone had to come save them...right?...
“Kiyo!!! KIYO!!!”
He wasn’t answering her any longer. No. This couldn't be! In utter defeat, Akane collapsed her tired form over her elder brother and let out her despair. At this point she didn’t care if she was torn to ribbons, she wanted Kiyo back! Why?! How could he leave her there like that?! Stupid!!! He was so stupid!! Insult after insult left her lips but the words were stained with grief and a desperation to spout anything else to say that could relieve her of even an ounce of agony.
“Huh?”
It was then that their silhouettes appeared to flicker in the darkness. Blinking away her tears, Akane turned her attention to the mortal wound on Kiyo’s stomach. There, it looked as if a blue light began to grow and burn bright until all at once it burst into vibrant flame. Giving a shriek, Akane leapt away from her brother’s body but she stared on because she could not avert her gaze. However, soon her own injuries also became engulfed in blue fire and of course this scared Akane badly but once she realized that this fire was not burning away her flesh, she began to settle down. The sensation was a cooling one despite it’s fearsome appearance and to her amazement, her skin was rapidly re-growing and by extension sealed her gaping wounds.
Shocked, Akane stared at the scars that now replaced what had been life threatening lacerations. This was too insane. What was happening?! Was it a miracle? How?!
“ Akane?..”
“Kiyo?! KIYO!!”
Kiyo sat up and rubbed his head while he let out a small groan. What had gone down again? Where was he and--Akane had wrapped him in one of her signature strong-woman hugs and it was like he couldn’t breathe again! He did not know that as she cried and he held her that the both of them had come so close to death. He did not know he himself had been teetering on the cusp of life, that he had left the world and his sister. All he could do was hold her as she bawled her tired eyes out into his blood soaked shirt. Suddenly, he got a chill. He couldn’t explain it but *something* was happening nearby. It felt like a tremendous impression and had his line of sight locked on a portion of the street outside of one of the building’s shattered windows. His eyes widened when he saw it crater beneath what had to be some sort of invisible force and he looked away immediately. Whatever it was, he prayed that it would pass them by so maybe he could get Akane out of there in one piece.
“ Look atchu'! Ya almost got away!”
Blood spilled out onto the pavement coming from a horrendous creature. As if in pain, it writhed on the end of a sturdy spine that had extended from a bulky barbed club clutched by a large frayed hand. Vice Captain Omoni Hageshi leered at the pack that had her surrounded then released a plume of smoke from her mouth and nostrils simultaneously. It was being kept at a distance and then thrown away where it’s tortured soul would disperse from the atmosphere. From what she understood, these were beyond saving souls that had been corrupted by something foul. They were like monsters unable to speak or think properly and per the report she was aware that they possessed a nasty ability to create more of themselves by infecting innocent pluses. Omoni had been warned that coming into contact with any of their blood would result in she possibly befalling the same cruel fate of her targets.
Triggered, they attacked all at once but each was met with instant obliteration by one or a multitude of Namakizu’s malleable spikes before they or their fluids could come close to touching her. This should have made the job more interesting and complicated for Hageshi but as she continued to put down wave after wave of the frenzied beings she retained her signature grumpy unfazed expression. The great woman was bored and when she got bored, the maddening came next.
“ Damn you, Kagayaki...send’n me out here to clean up this mess..it’ll be fun they said...it'll be exciting they said...”
As she grumbled and moved down main street, more and more enemies were attracted to her position because her growing rage began to cause her spiritual energy to overflow. Besides proactive footwork, Hageshi was not making an effort to escape them. They would come in hoards only to be throttled into nothing so another mass could take their place. At times, a few would get close enough to land a hit but the club’s body would expand accordingly in order to block their attempts and allow her to brutalize them by sending them hurtling back into their cohorts. Beginning to lose her patience, Omoni unleashed an angry roar.
“ WELL, THIS AIN'T FUN!”
Truly monumental strength left a trail of decay at her back along with mounds of rotten souls and the lives they led before they had been rendered mindless spawn. Normally, the behemoth’s thoughts were always set on the battle before her but in Karakura things were different for the fourth’s Vice-Captain. Every one of her opponents had been humans. Humans were helpless. Humans who were just trying to live their lives without being pulled into an endless battle between the after-life’s appointed guardians and dark twisted demons. They were who mattered in the end and they would be who she saved that day. For as she pushed the herd back, those who had been unable to get to safety and had been hurt would find their misery revoked and their wounds covered with coarse scars.
All at once, everything
changed. The sky grew dark and dim, the crowd of diseased souls had ceased attacking her in order to gather together. This garnered a bit more of Hageshi’s attention long enough for her to recognize three shinigami who’d appeared to be summoning the others. Another second indicated these were the thirteenth members that had succumbed to the disastrous affliction. To Omoni’s slight dismay it became obvious that they too were beyond the scope of any aid she could provide besides putting their mutated corpses out of their misery. The trio must have noticed she was not slowing her charge and so like a cornered animal, in an act of desperation their bodies rapidly altered. In the end, they accumulated into a single bulbous abominable entity of decomposition.
That hadn’t been in the report. It’s size dwarfed the few lucky skyscrapers still standing in Karakura and as they glared down at her it seemed to relish in its own newfound coagulation of power. In unison their joined voices rasped crudely.
“WE…….WILL…...DEVOUR…---YOU…?!”
KA -BOOM
The moment that they had formulated, their body was overtaken by a colossal shadow. A cacophony of eyes watched in terrific horror as the reaper’s Zanpakuto mimed them to perfection by increasing in size; however, it did not stop until it was sufficiently larger than they were. In a sea of purifying flames Namakizu’s swollen wrath came down, splattering the beast on the asphalt like a bug. The force caused the earth to quake below Hageshi’s feet and only subsided once the last of the disturbance had vanished from the world. Left with no opponent, Hageshi scoffed and in a single motion heaved Namakizu, which had shrunk down to a more appropriate size, onto her shoulders. Brainless sacks of spirits were all they were with no flare, no style and that was what was most annoying about the entire mission.
“Thought ya said you were gonna eat me...must’ve had somethin’ in my ears.”
Casually, she dug at the inside of her left ear with her pinky as if she were trying to rid it of wax making it hard to hear. Determining her job was done, Omoni turned away from the rubble in order to make her way back to the Seireitei where she’d relay word of her victory.
The new Commander had been very intelligent to send her there to handle the crisis. When others failed, Omoni was often the choice to send to get things done. Sure, most of the time it was never neat but the enemy would be destroyed and life would go on. In this case, the hoard of monsters had been too much for other agents to handle because the sheer magnitude of their numbers was overwhelming and with their ability to convert other souls into more of their kind that issue would only worsen. Arguably, the only viable option had been to send in a spiritual tank like Hageshi who could hold her own against a rising scourge of assailants with ease all the while keeping them far from her person and by inadvertently summoning them all to one place, she could exterminate each one without too much leg work. In terms of power, they weren’t much to shake a stick at. Once their army became a moot point so did their threat.
Thus the balance of souls had been restored. Granted, many lives were lost that day but after vanquishing the darkness in Karakura, the spiritual cycle of life would begin anew.
